Overview

​Oakland Housing Authority Police Department’s Nationally Recognized Crime Prevention Program

The success of the Oakland Housing Authority Police Department’s (OHAPD) Community Policing Approach is simple. We empower the public housing community by changing our residents from the inside out. Our success in partnership represents a philosophy of equality, mutual respect and trust. 

Although some community policing strategies, such as foot patrol, resemble policing of years past, the Community Policing approach is not new.  Community Policing is not just another “tack on” program that requires new resources. It is a philosophy, a management style, and an organizational design that promotes police-community partnerships and proactive problem-solving strategies. It is a different way of looking at policing.

In 1992, OHAPD introduced a method of community policing designed to encourage residents and officers to work together to reduce crime. The Community Policing program was recognized on national television and then-Attorney General Janet Reno visited the area twice to see the transformation for herself.

OHAPD’s Unique Approach to Community Policing

• Our program redefines the roles of the community and police and the relationships between them. Both share responsibility for social order and work cooperatively to identify problems and develop practical, community-wide solutions throughout the public housing population.
• Our program acknowledges that we cannot do the job of public safety alone and recognizes that we have valuable resources available in our community.
• OHAPD’s program uses the Healthy, Safe, Welcoming and Equitable Communities model, which recognizes that communities are naturally resilient and that their members have the ability to identify and solve their own problems.  
• Community empowerment occurs when we enlist our residents in identifying their problems, determining their own solutions to them, and then working together with law enforcement to make positive changes. Only then do they truly have control of their own destinies.